Was Artaud a schizophrenic?
A rage against the dying of the light : Antonin Artaud’s struggles to convey his schizophrenic experience, 1920-1926.
What drugs did Artaud use?
Antonin Artaud suffered his first depressive breakdown at 16; at 21, he was diagnosed with hereditary syphilis (his parents, in addition, were first cousins). He was treated with laudanum, which initiated a lifelong drug addiction.
What was Artaud’s mental illness?
Artaud contracted meningitis when he was five years old, and is said to have suffered more or less acute mental illness ever since, leading to repeated periods in sanatoria and, for the last ten years of his life, in mental asylums, where treatment included electric shock therapy.
What happened to Artaud?
Artaud died of cancer on March 4, 1948, in a rest home near Paris. Unlike his fellow theoretician of the drama, Bertolt Brecht, whose plays have been widely honored and frequently performed, Artaud had no success at all with his endeavors in drama, poetry, or fiction. His reputation rests entirely on his critical work.
Why was Artaud in an asylum?
Artaud wrote a lot about madness. Artaud had something like 52 electro-shock treatments. Artaud went to Ireland in 1937, he was having delusions and he got deported back to France where he was put in various different psychiatric institutions.
How did Antonin Artaud feel about set and staging?
Productions and staging Artaud wanted to abolish the stage and auditorium, and to do away with sets and props and masks. He envisioned the performance space as an empty room with the audience seated in the center and the actors performing all around them.
How is expressionism used in theatre?
Similar to the broader movement of Expressionism in the arts, Expressionist theatre utilized theatrical elements and scenery with exaggeration and distortion to deliver strong feelings and ideas to audiences.
What is Artaud’s theory of theatre?
Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.
Is Artaud’s Theatre about violence?
Yes we have the Tarahumaras and Balinese dance, and yes most would say his cruelty is not about violence, but Artaud’s theatre is in theory something that is violent and destructive. He was always writing about these apocalyptic scenarios.
How did Artaud approach the Balinese theatre?
1 Artaud did experience the kind of theatre that he wrote about when he saw the Balinese dancers and participated in the peyote ritual with the Tarahumaras. 2 All texts that Artaud approached, he approached them through his own perspective. 3 The peyote ritual is based on a dance.
What is the difference between theatre and Artaudian theatre?
Theatre should be this contagious, uncontrollable force that invades the body of the actor rendering all their intellectual capabilities useless: turning them into this pure, affective energy. Artaudian work is about the violence that you can do to a text using their body in some way.